The playoffs start today. For Rangers fans, the “playoffs” are bonus games at the end of the season that good teams earn for being good.

The Los Angeles Dodgers go for their third consecutive World Series championship. National League fans in Milwaukee, Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and San Diego are hoping that doesn’t happen. One group, however, desperately wants the Dodgers to win it all. In fact, they want the World Series to be the Yankees and the Dodgers. And that group is the billionaire boys club that makes up the ownership of major league baseball teams.

As you are well aware, the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the players and owners expires at the conclusion of the World Series. There is no doubt that owners are going to lock out the players. Ownership has gone on record loudly saying there will be no new agreement that doesn’t include a salary cap. Players have gone on record just as loudly saying there is no way they will ever accept a salary cap. 

The battle lines are drawn. And they are as far apart as humanly possible. 

The owners are claiming that baseball absolutely must have a salary cap in order to keep a competitive balance. Small market teams simply cannot complete, they argue. The Dodgers have such a lucrative local TV contract that they can simply buy all the players they need to win. Look what they’ve done the past two years.

Their entire narrative is that the Dodgers are the evil empire, and something must be done to stop them. 

Rangers fans who have just endured the ninth losing season in the last ten years will be hard to convince that small-market teams are at a disadvantage. It’s small minded teams that are. The Rangers are in the fourth-largest TV market. They could compete if they want, they just choose not to. The size of the market doesn’t matter. It’s the size of the desire to invest in a winner, along with the size of the ability to build a winner. 

The only way to convince baseball fans that the only way to save baseball is with a salary cap because that’s the only way small-market teams have a chance is if the Dodgers win again. Major League Baseball needs a villain. If the Brewers and Rays make it to the World Series, MLB’s entire narrative is shattered. 

So, here’s hoping it’s a Tampa Bay-Milwaukee World Series. Let the playoffs begin. Anad, again, for Rangers fans, the playoffs are bonus games that good teams get to play.

*****